Lori Berenson, Long Held In Peru Prison, Gets Parole

Lori Berenson, the U.S. citizen in the midst of serving a 20-year prison sentence in Peru after a court there convicted her of helping leftist guerillas was granted parole Tuesday.

Berenson was arrested in November 1995 on a public bus in Lima, Peru and eventually charged as a member of the insurgent organization MRTA. She was convicted of treason and sentenced to life in prison.

Berenson and her family always said her conviction was a miscarriage of justice, that she didn't do what she was accused of.

Her case became something of a cause celebre, with human-rights advocates among others accusing the Peruvian government of violating international norms of justice.

Her treason conviction was later overturned but Berenson was then convicted on the lesser charge of collaboration. It is from that sentence that she is being paroled.